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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29771922">Swan Song</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainHarmonia/pseuds/RainHarmonia'>RainHarmonia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Penumbra (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amabel counts as a major character right?, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I spent a whole ten seconds on that title I'm sorry, I think?, because as soon as I have to add tags all the thoughts of tags leave my head, does having a box dropped on your head and dying from that count as graphic depictions of violence?, is it cool to add to the Penumbra fandom in 2021 because this place is soooo dead, look this is just me messing around in the tags section by this point, some creative liberties</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:10:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29771922</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainHarmonia/pseuds/RainHarmonia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Amabel had no idea what to expect out of the Greenland Shelter, but it definitely wasn't a zombie apocalypse-esque situation. She couldn't be the only infection free person left in the facility, could she?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Swan Song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I am once again on my bullshit, this time to examine Amabel's death scene and try to make it make a little more sense. I wrote this in one hour long sitting and didn't edit anything but fuck it, it's 11 pm on a Sunday and I need to go sleep for my early college class tomorrow.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She hadn’t been sure what to expect when she signed her life away to the Archaic. Nor had she been sure what to expect when the Archaic decided to station her in an incredibly secret (even by the organization’s standards, apparently) facility hidden beneath an abandoned mine in the middle of nowhere, Greenland. What Amabel Swanson <i>did</i> know, however, was that any expectation she might have taken a guess at wouldn’t have even come close to her current situation.</p>
<p>Real life wasn’t supposed to feel like a horror film, but she supposed that for most people, real life also wasn’t not existing whatsoever to the public eye. And that was probably the worst part of this. Nobody, even among the Archaic, knew of this place. Unless someone got out, which was very unlikely, nobody would ever know that there were people down here in need of help. Were there still people by this point, or was she the last one left? Had the infected creatures roaming the complex managed to wipe out the rest of her coworkers? Trapped in her lab, she had no way of knowing. No way other than her computer, that was, but so far that had proven a fruitless way to contact anyone still out there.</p>
<p>Surely someone was still out there.</p>
<p>Despite what one might expect of a damsel in distress, there was precious little time for sleep. Damsel in distress she might be, but helpless Amabel was not. Hours on end were spent on research, on testing (at least until her supplies ran out), on an attempt to develop a working cure to the virus. Hours more were spent at her computer, either for further research or to while away the time with Schmup while waiting for a call sent out to the other online computers in the Shelter to be answered.</p>
<p>Day after day, no answer came. Day after day, Amabel repeated the process. There had to be someone out there still.</p>
<p>Finally, <i>finally</i> her call was picked up. Not caring that she would lose her progress in the current round, she closed out Schmup and pulled up the chat window. The video feed was grainy, the lighting on the other end not the best, but that was still clearly another person on her screen and not one of the Tuurngait infected. A man, unfamiliar (though she would readily admit to not knowing every single person the Archaic had assigned to this facility), face dirtied. Facial details beyond that were difficult to make out thanks to the poor camera quality leaving several small patches of dead pixels on his face.</p>
<p>Weary as she was, and weary as he looked, the sight was still enough to brighten her up considerably. “Wow, you look like you’ve crawled through a sewer to get here. I suppose I’m flattered,” she greeted, not needing to force her smile for the first time since being stuck down here. “Hi, I’m Amabel. Amabel Swanson. And I suppose I’ll be your guide for the day.”</p>
<p>The man leaned in closer to his screen, mouth moving in silence. Okay, so things weren’t <i>perfect</i>. It turned out that only the camera worked on whatever computer he was using. Terribly inconvenient, but she managed to have a rather satisfying (if one-sided) conversation nonetheless before the call cut off abruptly. Leaning back in her chair, she heaved a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>Someone else was still out there.</p>
<p>Hours later, she once again had an outgoing call waiting to be picked up, and picked up it was. The background was different this time. He had clearly found a different room to call from. The camera quality was still poor; small sections of his face were still darkened with dead pixels (Wait, that must be a problem on her screen’s end, except that those pixels weren’t dead on anything other than this video feed? Dammit, she was a chemist, not a computer whiz). And was that blood trickling down his cheek? </p>
<p>The second call didn’t last as long as the first, and she’d left her mysterious companion in misfortune with a warning about the strange artefact that she could see a glimpse of at the edge of his screen and a plea for rescue. Would he actually bother to come? He’d seemed to be in residential, so with the deathly cold of the surface crossing and the dangers of the infected-patrolled hallways, she wasn’t sure she was actually expecting him to. She couldn’t really blame him for just trying to get out instead.</p>
<p>And yet, the next day, just as she was celebrating an end to her research, her waiting call was answered. And there he was. Still without a sound from his end (another problem with her own computer?) and with those very same discolored patches on his face that she still dismissed as dead pixels, though she tossed out the offer of her discovered cure either way. Sure, its effectiveness was still theoretical, and side effects were unknown, but wasn’t that better than letting the virus take over completely? Besides, he may not even need it. Perhaps those splotches on his face were simply scrapes or dirt picked up from traversing the dangers of the Shelter. </p>
<p>Because that couldn’t be infection scarring. Because there had to still be someone left. Because Amabel couldn’t be the last untouched person in this entire facility.</p>
<p>And so when a knock came at the big metal doors, she rushed over to press her ear to the crack, just in time to hear a voice. Not the harsh, garbled voice of someone taken by the Tuurngait. Raspy from disuse, and quiet with trepidation, but clear and human. Relieved, she answered his questioning call for her. And after sending him off to find a keycard that could open these damn doors, she turned so her back was against the doors, sliding down against the chilled metal to seat herself on the floor with a laugh. Trembling and uncertain at first, but growing stronger, brighter as it went on. She was going to get out of here. And then- What then? Well she was going to quit the Archaic for sure. This entire ordeal had proven that the organization was shady and questionable at best.</p>
<p>As she picked herself up and went off to a backroom, to gather up what little supplies she had left, she continued to ponder her future. She definitely wanted to continue to work with chemistry. She’d certainly have to start her life over from scratch, as well as take efforts to avoid the Archaic. Who knew how extensive they were, and considering their level of secrecy, she doubted they would simply let her leave their ranks with no strings attached.</p>
<p>Lost in her planning for some time, she was finally jolted out of it by the sound of one of those big metal doors scraping open and then slamming shut. Taking a minute to check that she had everything that could possibly be useful, Amabel exited the small side room just in time to see her rescuer step into the larger storage room, pulling the door closed behind him. <br/>Relief and joy swelling up bright within her, she hurried towards him, reaching out, ready to deliver on her promise of the biggest hug of his life. But as he spotted her, his face drained of color, panic washing over his expression, and he turned and fled towards the other end of the room. She slowed to a halt, watching him press himself into the corner and grasp around himself. He was terrified of her, and it must not be she that he was seeing, which meant that he was already at the stage of infection that began to break down the  victim’s mind. Yet rather than the signs of aggression that the other infected exhibited, he was frightened. Perhaps he was not too far gone that he couldn’t be reached.</p>
<p>As she searched for the words to try to calm him down, his hand closed around a lever. He glanced at it, then at her, and almost simultaneously, they both looked up at the box hanging from a chain high above the center of the room. Roughly where Amabel stood. Her mouth opened. He yanked down on the lever. She threw herself to the side, her intended assurances that she had no intention of harming him turning into a shriek as a corner of the falling box clipped her head.</p>
<p>She tumbled to the floor, pain screaming through her and something wet soaking into her hair, her neck, her head. Her vision swam, and as darkness began to fuzz the edges, she saw the man’s expression shift again. He stepped slowly towards her, first confused and then horrified. Then, with a twitch, gleeful, only for the horror to swiftly return. The last thing she saw was the tears welling up in his eyes, his infection-scarred face spasming between guilt and delight. So he’d been too far gone to the virus after all.</p>
<p>She hoped that there was nobody else left for him to find.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeah, sorry, I just saw a piece of fanart featuring Philip with infection scars and now I'm a fan of the idea so you got that in this little mess. I'm also a fan of Clarence breaking through into Philip's expression the longer he's with Philip, so that happened at the end. Also I did away with the whole "you need to turn the wheel to raise the lever" because that takes way too long and there's no way Amabel wouldn't just...stay out of the center of the room once she saw that happening?</p>
<p>Will I see this fandom again? Who knows. I have ideas, but we'll see if I can focus on one long enough to write it. Ta-ta friends!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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